District 300 tries e-learning to make up emergency days

Students at Jacobs High School work on School District 300-issued Chromebooks and will use them at home to make up three emergency days from the winter. (Rafael Guerrero / The Courier-News)

Students in School District 300 will make up three of five school days lost to winter weather this year via online assignments and lessons and materials they will work on from home.

Board members approved an e-learning day pilot program earlier this month, despite skepticism from some parents. Staff handed out the assignments for the first e-learning day, scheduled for Monday, March 25. Despite the “e-learning day” moniker, students will have several days to complete the work from home and without teacher supervision. Two other online instructional days have been scheduled for April.

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Officials with the Algonquin-based school district — which also includes Carpentersville, East and West Dundee — say the pilot program will help educators gauge whether schools can make up snow days via online instruction in future years.

“Adding days to the end of the school year doesn’t make up for the days you missed in December and January,” said Superintendent Fred Heid. “It’s not fair to just push things back.”

Like other school districts in the area, District 300 used multiple emergency days this winter. Schools closed for five days — two for snowfall, two for historic subzero temperatures, and one for cold-related mechanical problems with its school bus fleet. Officials considered how to best make up the days — extend the school year beyond Memorial Day or find another option.

A hybrid of in-school and online instruction was their solution. One of the five emergency days will be made up in-school by replacing a district holiday scheduled for April, an extra day of school will be added at the end of the year, making the final day May 24, and the other three days will be made up via the e-learning pilot.

Students in grades 2-12 will tackle assignments via the district’s digital learning software, accessible through their district-issued Chromebook computers. The work for one day will take about four to five hours to complete, Heid said, and can be done when students choose before the deadline of April 4 for the March 25 day. For students with no internet access at home, the content will be downloaded at school, accessible offline, and uploaded once on a wireless network, he added.

Parents can opt their children out from the virtual learning days, but any missed day is an unexcused absence, Heid said.

Some school districts have already incorporated e-learning days. Gurnee District 56, West Chicago-based Community High School District 94, and Leyden High School District 212 chose this route to replace emergency days, said Illinois State Board of Education spokeswoman Jackie Matthews.

The venture into e-learning in schools became a possibility after the overhaul of education funding in the state in 2017 removed language defining an instructional day. Lawmakers this year have looked at legislation to reinstate the language requiring in-school instructional days to be at least five hours.

Some parents have questioned the district’s motives with the e-learning program.

“My greatest concern is I’m missing the value that e-learning has at all for the students,” Michele Clark, an Algonquin parent, said at a March school board meeting. “I understand that this really only checks off a box in regard to attendance days.”

Cary parent Andrew Dodd said the pilot was rushed and presented a potential “slippery slope” for district officials to abuse e-learning days.

“Why now? Why are we pushing the issue so fast?” he asked, noting school districts have had to deal with emergency days before.

Heid has said the virtual learning days will not necessarily be repeated in future years. The district will gather feedback from staff regarding the e-learning process, and present results, probably in the summer.

“Piloting is just that — it’s a pilot (program),” Heid said at the March 4 board meeting. “I think instruction-wise, our lessons will be there,” he said. “But we won’t know until we get the feedback.”